Page 2 of Five for Silver

“It’s their breakfast time.”

“It’s Saturday.” Chad yawned into his hand. “I wasworking late last night.”

The case they’d been working on was near enoughclosed, they were just waiting on Dead-Dave’s autopsy report tofile everything away into the domestic homicide cabinet.

A simple case of a wife killing her husband becauseof his infidelity. Knife wounds aplenty, Dead-Dave had beenundecided on the killing blow with so many to choose from anddecided he needed the weekend to decide what happened to thevictim, blow by blow, second by second.

“Not the magpies’ fault,” Romeo dove his hand intohis coat pocket, threw another handful of seed, then began a slowplod towards the house. He tugged down his hood and combed back hishair with his fingers. It was long enough that the natural waves inRomeo’s hair were showing, curling the strands beneath his ears.The messy hair, the gruff beard, and the piercing eyes did thingsto Chad despite his annoyance.

Romeo was handsome, even tracking back to the housethrough a muddy field, with birds cawing and scraping behindhim.

“All you need is a black coat and a scythe.”

“I like the sound of that.”

A crow landed close by and Romeo yelled at it untilit flew away.

“You shouldn’t do that.” Chad told him.

“Why not?”

“They deserve to eat, too.”

Romeo gestured behind himself. “And they can. Theycan find their own.”

Chad sighed as Romeo passed out of Chad’s sight, andinto the house through the kitchen door.

He slammed shut the window, listening to Romeo trekthrough the kitchen.

Chad bit his lip.

He grabbed a bottle of lube, then trudged into theirensuite bathroom to splash water on his face and brush his teeth.Romeo appeared behind him in the doorway a few minutes later.

He watched Chad in the mirror who paused mid-brushto glare back.

“6:00 in the morning.” Chad spoke around histoothbrush.

Romeo stepped closer and wrapped his arms aroundChad’s waist.

“It’s Saturday, and that’s how you chose to wakeme?”

Romeo narrowed his eyes in the mirror. The edge ofhis mouth pulled upwards. “How else did you want to be woken?”

“I can think of a few ways that would beparticularly nice.”

“Oh, yeah?”

Chad hummed and resumed brushing.

“Has anyone ever told you, it’s rude to talk withyour mouth full?”

Before Chad could snipe back, Romeo pulled thetoothbrush from his mouth.

“Romeo!” Chad squawked, blushing hard at thetoothpaste that had leaked from the edge of his lips.The shock of it had him swallowing his mouthful ofmint.

Chad’s eyes burned.

Romeo smirked, slotting Chad’s toothbrush back intothe holder. He turned Chad around in his arms and wiped his roughthumb over the edge of Chad’s mouth.

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